The Grind-Cast Quarantine Edition / Special Guest – Debra Searle MBE

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

Trying told him, I'm a beast.

But what's up gang?

Welcome to the grind cast.

Simon Areas here.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And I have my friend, Debra Cirl, like Pearl in the house

with us today all the way from the UK.

I met her at a John Maxwell event in London within the last

year.

And I just fell in love with her story in ambition.

And I'm thinking, who better to have to inspire some of the

people, not just the women?

Sometimes we get women on.

And it's like, all right, we think it's only for women.

But man, the value that you bring, the things that you've

accomplished for everybody, for anybody.

Men, women, everybody is going to probably get something from

this.

But I specifically wanted to show someone that's just a beast

female.

So I'm going to read the bio right off the paper and forgive

me some of these things.

I don't know so we can make that part of learning more about

you because I just want to learn more about you, how

was your upbringing and all that stuff.

But so here it is, motivational speaker, professional

adventure and founder of five companies.

Debra Surle, M-B-O-M-B-E is a unique and inspiring individual.

She has launched five companies, one gold world championship

metals for GB.

What do they, which GB, forgive my?

Great.

So it's great Britain.

So it was great Britain.

Is that being in the US squad for a sport?

OK.

So I don't know what areas are the best for education around you.

I know you mentioned four and a half hours from London.

But for me, I grew up in a town called Youngstown, Ohio.

It's a small blue collar town.

And I mean, I just got my work ethic from there.

I just love the people down to Earth from there.

And then I was rough around the edges.

I kind of ventured off.

And I say all that to say, there's gaps sometimes.

You'll see in things like this of like, OK, I should know GB.

But there's my gap.

And I got a college education.

But there's things that I probably should know.

So thank you.

We go gaps.

So presented over 40 programs for the BBC became the youngest ever

trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh's award in successfully

rode solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

I don't know if I can even I had a hard time rolling row

and solo in Spain.

I went to this like little small pond with my kids.

And they were videotape in me.

I had my wife and my wife's in one boat.

I'm in the other boat.

And we start rolling and my wife's doing better than me.

And I can't even get the thing out of park.

So I can't even imagine rolling solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Her majesty, the queen, has recognized

Deborah on two occasions in 2002 with an MBE.

And in 2014 with an MBO.

What's an MBE and an MBO?

Yeah, it's one of those things that if you're not from the UK,

you wouldn't really know it.

But in the US.

So I get a pass for that one then.

Oh, totally.

No one knows that.

I'm not going to say the UK, but it's MBE stands for

Member of the British Empire.

And it's award given by the Queen for an act of great service.

And then the MVO is a member of the Victorian Order.

And that's a special award given by a member of the Royal family.

If you've done specific direct work for the Royal family.

And I worked with Prince Philip, who's the Queen's husband

for 10 years on the Duke of Edinburgh's Ward board.

So that was what that that award was for.

And it was kind of odd because I'm quite young to get those awards.

And you go to Buckingham Palace and assist big ceremony.

And I was the anyone that didn't really have great hair.

Awesome.

That's amazing.

That place was unbelievable.

I mean, the experience just seeing all of that stuff was crazy.

So I can imagine getting honored and stuff like that.

Deborah has published three books, including the Choose Your Attitude.

Journal.

Love that.

Choose your attitude.

A daily journaling practice designed for anyone

who wants to apply the tools of positive psychology

to help them to become happier and achieve their goals.

Who wouldn't want that?

Deborah has spoken at over 1,000 events across 38 countries.

The movie of her solo Atlantic row is currently in development in Hollywood.

Unbelievable.

So who would have thought?

So tell us about yourself.

How did you grow up?

How was your upbringing?

And how did you turn into this just business in life just beast?

And you're a mom and you're a wife.

And it's wow.

That's how I'm.

Thank you so much for having me on this.

And I really hope this would be, we'll get some quite practical stuff

so people really get something of value out in this session.

But just to put who I am in context obviously, I'm here in the UK.

I live in England about four and a half hours south west of London.

So I'm kind of down on the coast in the sticks.

And I was brought up down here and had a kind of slightly rocky start in life.

I was in one half of identical twins.

So there is another one that looks just like me who's my business partner.

And unfortunately we were given up for adoption at birth.

We were our birth mother was only 16.

So she obviously felt she couldn't cope with twins.

At that age and at the time the law was that you couldn't even have to have keep the twins together.

So she we were fostered separately.

Thankfully we were adopted though back together and had a very happy childhood with a lovely family who already had my two brothers, my older brothers.

And you know went on to have a much happier ride after that.

But it was a bit of a shaky start.

But it's meant that there's a bond between Haley and I, my twin sister that is second to none.

And which is why we started four of the five businesses together because there's something very unique about our relationship.

And it's partly because we're the only blood relative each other knows.

And I guess I was your typical kid at school who I was sporty and I was interested in boys and both of those things meant that I didn't really focus on my academics.

And I didn't do great at school.

But what I really loved was exploration and adventure.

I made this decision as a teenager I was going to be a professional adventurer.

And that's been the top top title on my business card for the last 20 years and just taking you all around the world doing these crazy expeditions.

But I also had this passion to to follow in my father's footsteps.

He's an entrepreneur.

And I grew up seeing him buying and selling and growing businesses.

And I really wanted that too.

But because I didn't do well at school academically I just thought it was beyond me to do that.

And then everything changed when I rode the Atlanta because I guess it made me feel slightly invincible for a while.

But why am I not doing my dream?

And at the time I was a PE teacher I taught Fizz Ed to secondary school kids in a high school.

And it wasn't really what I wanted to do.

So I left teaching and I set up my first business.

Well, you know, I did the other way around.

I set up the first business until there was enough revenue to drop the teaching job.

And now we're five companies on amazingly.

So I went on quite a journey to kind of have to really get rid of some of these massive limiting beliefs I had about my intelligence.

And I feel like I still feel something I feel I work on almost every week.

There's something that really challenges my confidence about my intelligence.

And so I really related to you at the start when you were saying there are gaps.

You know, so very much the same.

But I'm now in a happy place where I have multiple businesses.

We are the five three are going strong.

They weren't all successful, but they were mine.

And I learned a lot from the biggest mistakes.

And that's great.

I've got two little girls.

And yeah, kind of now doing that whole juggling kids and homeschooling and trying to keep the businesses going in current times.

You know, that's cool to hear you talk about not only the successes, but you know, some of the failures.

You know, it's not everything is successful.

I was so relieved when I heard you start to tell your story and stuff.

I'm like, okay, so I definitely get a pass on the GB now because you have gaps.

You got some gaps.

I got big gaps.

So, you know, how would you say you've shifted your mindset, you know, to handle the way that you view setbacks or struggles or obstacles or perceived failures.

You know, maximize that book.

You know, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn, you know, type deal.

And I think, you know, a lot of people, most people struggle with going to the next level, sometimes just based on fear of failure.

Yeah.

And the fear is always there in my opinion.

You just got to find a way to get through that and understand that they're learning opportunities.

So, how have you been able to use some of the things that you weren't necessarily successful as you wanted to be at to catapult you in the areas that you were extremely successful at?

Yeah.

I mean, it is a real process and there's quite a few elements to it.

I suppose, first of all, was that I had to really work through this issue of these limiting beliefs I had.

And the way I did that, as I said, right, okay, what is the evidence that you are unintelligent and cannot start a business?

And I had to, you know, I had to work to get well, I got, you know, I ended up getting this qualification and I've achieved this one, you know, I struggled.

And so, I started to see that there wasn't really the evidence to support what I'd discovered that about my intelligence and actually I had to really go back and search, why do I feel that way about myself?

And I actually realized it was because I have an identical twin who was very capable. She did really well at school.

And I was constantly compared to her.

People would say, oh, how did you do new exam results? And then the next question would always be, oh, and how did Haley do?

And you realize they're doing this calculation of wow, she did a lot less, you know, lot less well than her sister did.

And this constant affirming of you're just not as good as your sister, you're not very bright, you're not very intelligent.

And so I had to really kind of go back into my history and go, why have I got this stuck in my head? And now what do I do about it?

And so I've started questioning, you know, what is the evidence? And as you go on in life and you get more success, you've got even more evidence that it's not true.

I'm actually really capable.

But I also have, I have trigger phrases. I have songs that motivate me. I have, I even this little thing here on my net,

if you can see it, it's a little, oh, hello, there was someone behind you then.

It's a little Barney the C-Tertel. And when I was wearing the Atlantic, I loved the C-Tertels that would come and visit me.

And so I had a necklace made. And when I'm feeling uncomfortable, I hold it sometimes in meetings. And this is like my little trigger in my brain to go,

come on Deborah, if you can row an ocean, you can get through this meeting and win.

I can see someone hiding behind that.

That's my 17 year old. And we got a new puppy.

And the cool thing is for me working from the home office is I got a couple assistants.

So I say, oh, it's hot in here. Come open up the window for me. And then my puppy here. I'll show you that we got a new bull mast of just slid in, slid in.

Hello.

Hi. What's your name?

This is our three month old puppy.

Oh my goodness.

Your three month old puppy is already a beast. That's an omnis.

Oh, massive. Just just a giant.

Just a giant.

So the hard thing for my poor 17 year old is I'm home.

So now I'm like, she's up at five in the morning, you know, getting workouts and making her listen to podcasts and send me notes like boot camp.

Like we got to get Uncle Simon out of here.

A S A P.

So anyway, sorry to interrupt you.

No, that was that was a great introduction. That was great fun.

What, you know, during this transition, you mentioned, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier.

And you know, you said, you know, a couple of the businesses they haven't allowed to or you can't really get rolling the same during this pandemic.

COVID-19.

But one of them is rolling, you know, seems like pretty successful.

How have you, how have you been able to control what you can control?

How have you been able to flip the switch, you know, so to speak of, what can I excel in right now?

How do I not waste waste time? But how do I find a way to grow?

When I'm limited at the same time.

What would your suggestion be to people that are kind of, you know, shut down or where they can't really do some things in their business?

How have you taken a approach to still find a way to grow, even if it's internally?

Yeah, we've, well, the first thing I did was had a really good look at the financials.

And I think it's a time like this, you can't bury your hand head in the sand, particularly if you're a business owner or, you know, in a management position.

You've got to be very real about what is the financial forecast going forward?

If we're still in lockdown six months from now, or if my particular industry doesn't bounce back in a year from now, what are we going to do?

So I think getting very realistic about where the numbers were at was important because that gave us a clear plan.

And it also then allowed us to go, okay, we're going to lose all the income in this one business because, you know, it was in events and events, big scale events where people come together can't happen anymore.

So that's not going to be there for a long time.

And so then it was a case of, okay, it's now time to pivot.

We've got to look at what can we do that we were doing offline? How do we put it online?

And just getting really proactive about just controlling the controllables.

What are the things? What is the next step I can take to get this online or to, you know, do this digitally or, and then how can we go out to previous clients and sell them this new way of being?

Because we're all set at home still hoping work is going to continue.

There are still customers out there to sell to.

So we went back and through the last three years of clients, we really research, you know, who is still at the same company, getting on LinkedIn, who's moved, you know, have we still got the right contact details?

And we still current with the, you know, the communications we can have with them.

And then just bring out a whole new marketing campaign to get the products and the ideas out to them and to start build new revenues.

because the old ones are gone.

You know, we just can't sit around waiting for them to come back.

So it was just being really proactive about,

you know, step by step, control the controllables

and let go of the rest.

Let go of all the stuff we can't do anything about the moment anyway.

And that involves letting go of all the emotional stress

about it and all the racing brain and the thoughts about it

because that's not helping me bring in the revenue.

You know, I've got to channel the energy,

the little bit I have got after I finished homeschooling

to what is the one thing I can do here

that would get something in front of the customer

where they might buy something.

So that's been our approach so far

and it's working quite well so far.

It's, it feels a little bit like being in startup mode,

again, if I'm honest.

And this one business where, you know, we're pivoting

started 20 years ago.

It's 20 years ago that I left my teaching job

and started it.

So it feels like I'm back in the trenches doing stuff

that I haven't done for many years.

But I have, I feel like I've got no choice

if I want the business to be there in a year from now.

I got to get down and dirty and doing all the jobs

that I don't really want to do,

but somebody's got to do them at the moment.

Yeah, I think the key thing that, you know, that you said too

is, is I think the people that are going to thrive

are the ones that are controlling what they can control.

You know, so many, so many people that, you know,

they'll get paralyzed for a minute.

Everybody, you know, when it first happens,

like kind of stuck, but then it goes, okay, you know,

I have to do something that I can control.

So I'm not just sitting here moping, feeling bad,

getting in your, in your own mental, you know,

because that's not going to help us get to where we want to be.

You know, I know you talked about you were traveling so often

and, you know, it's been one of the blessings you've been able

to be home a little bit more with your kids and a little bit

more with the family because, you know,

I don't, probably not as much as you,

but I'm always on traveling and planes and stuff too.

Yeah.

As your, as your, you know, what was your daily kind of route?

Do you have a successful daily routine?

You know, sometimes and athletes, you know, it's like,

all right, this is my warm up.

This is my routine that I do to get myself in, in, in mental shape

and in game mode.

Do you have a routine at all?

Yeah, I do.

Yeah, I might, my key thing is getting up before the family

because I know if once they're up, it's very hard to do the,

the morning routine.

So I get up before the others and I exercise first.

I train, I've always trained at home, actually.

So I, I, I love doing kind of hit sessions

high intensity interval training sessions.

So I do that for half an hour and then I have 15 minutes

where I, I fill in this, this journal that you've

actually journal and then I have about 15 minutes

where I, you know, I pray and meditate.

I do the kind of the more spiritual side and that hour,

you know, it's like, it feels like there's a lot packed

into that hour, but that's really key for me.

And the way I do the, the hit sessions is, I alternate

between doing them kind of with, with weights and, and, you know,

dumbbells or with kettlebells.

And then the next day I'll do it on a bike.

And when I'm sat on the bike doing the hit session,

I have an online course on my laptop in front of me.

So every other day I do learning for the half hour while I'm training

or I listen to a podcast.

So, so, you know, for me, that's been a routine that's been there

for a while.

The key is getting to bed early enough because I probably

spent the first 15 years of my career going to bed too late.

Like I wish I could rewind that time.

If I could change one thing, I would work out what I needed

to do to get myself in bed earlier.

I was all, you know, when, I think that's natural sometimes

when you're a business only, like, you just keep grinding.

And so I was always going to bed at 1am and then still

getting up at 5.36 and thinking, oh, I'm okay,

I can survive on this slush leap.

And I was okay, I can function on that.

But my brain didn't work very well.

And it wasn't until I started getting more steep

that I realized how much more effective I can be,

how much better I am at my physical training, you know,

how much more better I am at managing people and customers

when I get more sleep.

So I have quite a night time routine now as well

to make sure that I'm embedded at a time to be able

to get up and do that morning routine.

That is so valuable.

That is a gem right there.

You know, that I don't want to just blow by that.

I'm a huge, you know, everything you just named

that you do in your hour.

Everybody that kind of knows me in my belief system,

I preach mind-body spirit, you know,

mentally, physically, spiritually,

developing and training yourself.

And that's, I have a very, very similar routine

in the mornings of prayer and scripture and reading

and exercise and all the same stuff.

For me, it's like brushing your teeth.

You know, it's like, I mean, you got to brush your teeth,

but you got to brush your spirit, you got to brush your mind

and you got to get your body rolling.

And that's, that's it.

But you know what Simon, I think that,

I think the challenges people know,

inherently they know that those things are good for them.

They know they'd probably function better if they did them.

The challenges people struggle to build them into a habit

that they do, as naturally as you say,

brushing your teeth.

Like this is just what I do every day.

And the big tip I would give people on that

is that we can, we have lots of habits every day

that are very established.

We all probably brush our teeth twice a day.

We probably remember to make our first coffee at the day

or put the blinds or the curtains open when it's morning.

Like we have habits that are on autopilot.

We don't even have to think about them.

We just do them.

And so what we can do is the things that we want to become habit,

we stack them on top of one that is already habit.

So an example would be, I have a habit stack in the evening

that when I brush my teeth in the evening,

I always then get my gym kit and put it by the side of my bed

so that when I step out of bed in the morning,

I have to stand on my gym kit to get out of bed.

And just that one habit stack of putting my gym,

I brush my teeth, then I put my kit out.

That one habit stack has meant that it is how we get

get into the mindset of getting up every morning and exercising.

And I know it sounds like such a simple thing,

but I've done it with everything like my journal.

This every night I lean it against my kettle,

which because I drink tea in the mornings.

And so in order to make my first tea,

I've got to move the journal off the kettle.

And then it's in my hand.

I'm like, okay, it's here now.

Let's write the journal.

So it's about finding ways to stack habits

on ones that are already embedded so that we can start

to get some of these things in autopilot in our brains.

What did you do to transition?

You mentioned in business a lot of times,

people's mind is racing and they're always thinking

that they, because you never really get it all done.

To mean it's about 48 hours in a day.

And so how did you transition to train your body

on train your mind to, because the go to,

what time are you typically getting up in the morning?

About quarter to six.

So that means you've got to try to be in bed before,

I'm assuming 10.

And if I, if I,

11 is good for me, ideally 10.

How did you do that?

How did you transition from, from that?

So the first thing I did was I worked out,

how long does it take me from when I decide

I'm going to get to bed, to going to bed?

And I realized that from when I decide to when I get into bed,

it's normally about an hour to an hour and a quarter.

So I set an alarm on my iPhone that goes off every night

at 9.45 pm that says go to bed now, they're broke.

And then underneath it, it says no, don't do one more job,

just go to bed now.

And that comes up every night at 9.45.

Because I'm like this, I'm on the laptop,

I'm like totally engrossed, I'm not thinking about it.

And then it comes up and every night I'm surprised.

Like oh, it's 9.45 already, okay.

So now I go and sort the kitchen

and I get the kids stuff ready and like, you know,

and I do all that other stuff.

And then all of a sudden it's like 10, quarter past 10.

And I'm only just getting into bed then.

So it's been having some triggers, you know,

like this alert that's helped me to remind me

to get into bed.

I also, I stopped drinking tea and coffee

by mid-day each day that made a big difference.

I stopped reading business books at bedtime

because I found if I read nonfiction,

then I would be like full of ideas and we should try that,

you know, but if I read fiction and just read a story,

I would often be asleep within a few pages.

So I had to change the things that I was putting in my brain.

And I also stopped reading and looking at anything

on a device for an hour before bed

so that I wasn't getting the blue light.

And so it's been quite a journey.

Like I literally had to commit to that for about a year

to get it into a routine, but it made a huge difference

because once it was established,

now that morning routine happens without me having to think

about it.

It's just a given.

I'm gonna get up and do it.

Life changer.

Life changer.

So, you know, you're probably, you know, best known by the,

you know, the solo row across the Atlantic

and stuff like that.

Can you tell some of the listeners out there,

you know, maybe what was the mindset like?

What was that like?

There had to be some grueling moments, you know,

what was the, some of the obstacles that you got through

and all of that stuff?

Yeah.

I mean, when I set out to row the Atlantic,

that was 18, 19 years ago now.

There were more people had been to the moon

than had rode across the ocean survived at that point.

And I had entered a double-handed race.

There were 36 teams from 16 different countries,

including one American team.

And the main difference between our team

and all the others was we were the only mixed sex team,

the other all double-handed men's teams.

And I'd gone with my ex-husband, he's six foot five,

he rode for Great Britain, you know,

he was this big powerhouse.

I had never even rode before.

And so I was like the joke entry of the race.

If anyone wasn't gonna make it, it was little wifey Deborah.

And when we set off on the first day,

and we lost sight of land, we realized that Andrew

had this massive phobia of open ocean.

And he literally lost it.

He was having panic attacks.

But we spent four years of our life building up to this,

preparing for it.

And I just thought we can't just give up on it like that.

But he got worse and worse he wasn't eating or drinking.

And so then by the end of the first week,

he started losing consciousness

because he was physically then in a bad way as well.

And I felt I had no option but to call for the rescue boat

to come and help us.

By this point, we hadn't seen anyone for a week,

by this one, all the other crews had gone.

And then I was left with this impossible decision.

Do I get off onto the rescue boat and go home with Andrew?

Or do I stay out here on my own and try and finish it

for both of us?

And I chose to go on alone.

Even though they said, you know, when they picked Andrew up,

they said, look, we can't follow along behind you.

There's only one rescue boat.

And we've got to get Andrew back to hospital.

So for however much longer, the 3000 miles takes you,

you're completely alone.

And that was a big moment, like knowing, wow,

like I'm literally in a boat that's six millimeter thick plywood

that's seven, not even seven meters long,

that's about a meter and a half wide.

So it's like what we're going through at the moment,

this kind of social isolation through this COVID lockdown,

but in a really small space, like being,

I mean, it's all open to the elements except for one bit,

which is like a coffin shaped pod that you can get in

if it's really stormy.

And you can shut the watertight door down.

And the boats designed to be self-writing.

So if it gets knocked over by a way,

that will roll back up again.

And that became my world.

And you know, with Andrew on board,

we thought it would take us about six weeks.

But it ended up being three and a half months

it took me because I was alone.

And that's a long time to be alone.

So how did you, you know,

if it was supposed to be six weeks?

Yeah.

And it was supposed to be you and your husband,

then all of a sudden it's longer than six weeks

and your husband's not there.

And it went past three months.

You know, what was that mental battle like?

How did you push through that mindset?

It was huge, you know, because whether,

when the mind goes, the body will follow, right?

So it wasn't a physical challenge in many respects.

It was, in my mind, it seemed almost entire mental.

Because I, you know, like the lockdown ran at the moment,

I didn't know how long this new world was going to be

in existence.

I didn't know how long I was going to be out there.

And so I came up with a whole load of mindset tools

that I could just constantly keep

applying different ones of them

in order to keep my positivity levels up.

Because that's what I realized early on was that

if I can boost my positivity, if I can feel positive

about being out here and not spiral down into this fear

and depression and, you know, just terrifying.

Because particularly at night when it's pitch black out there,

you look over the side, you know,

and you know, there's like two kilometers

of dark water below you.

And there is nobody for weeks.

Like there might be some containerships

but then I'm going to stop and help a tiny little rowing boat.

It's physically it would be very difficult for them

to help me anyway.

So I knew once the safety boat had left me,

I had to find ways mentally to stay positive

to keep going.

And so one of the key things I did was this

choose your attitude exercise.

And I wrote choose your attitude on the door

that faced me.

It was, you know, that was the cabin door.

And that's what I wrote.

It was on my eye line.

And so every day I would be looking at it

and I'd stop by that door at breakfast time.

And I would say out loud, right, come on Deborah,

choose your attitude which one is it going to be today?

And I'd make myself pick an attitude,

although, you know, have to be a positive one

because negative ones were banned from the boat.

And it was really hard to think of anything positive

a lot of the mornings because it was horrible out there

on my own.

And I'd be like, right, come on then, today's attitude is

like enthusiasm, you know, or something like that.

And then the next bit was I had to list out loud

if you were enthusiastic, what would the day bring?

And I'd think, well, if I was being enthusiastic,

I might pull a bit hard on the oars.

And then maybe I'll do more miles

and I've done on this next 24 hours.

And generally by the end of breakfast,

I'd feel pretty enthusiastic or whatever the one I picked.

And it wasn't always positive

because that wasn't what I needed.

They had to be positive in nature.

Like, you know, patients or car more enthusiastic

or optimistic.

And that exercised what it also stopped me doing.

And I think we all did this.

And we're all doing it a lot at the moment

with this COVID lockdown.

It's stopped me running the list of the things I either wanted

that I was frustrated about that I couldn't have

or that I hated.

And if I didn't do the choose your attitude exercise each morning,

I'd sit there going, I just want to sleep in a bed

that's totally still for a whole eight hours.

And I want to drink anything other than this disgusting,

purified sea water, because that's what I was living off.

And, you know, I really wanted some more toilet

roll, toilet paper, because I'd run out.

And I was having to use my sock.

I would just become desperate out there.

But if I did my choose your attitude exercise,

I'd at least started the day in the right way

with the right mindset.

And it was this massive transformation for me

of realizing I get to choose the attitude I approach each day

with until that time.

I didn't realize, like I didn't get this thing

of I'm the thing for my own thoughts.

I get to choose where I think positively or negatively.

And that for me was a huge turning point in life.

Once I started using that, when I got back from the Atlantic Row on day to day life,

everything changed.

That's when the businesses started to grow.

I started to get more success in my relationships.

And it's just recognizing that we have so much more control over it than we realize.

Yeah.

It sucks.

But like, if you've been through that by yourself mentally for months, pitch black,

it's just like unbelievable things that you probably realize that you can go through.

I know mentally, you've talked about kind of looking at your life in advance and visualizing

what your life would look like by the end of that story whenever that story is over.

And I think there's so much power in having a vision, visualizing things in advance.

And it kind of gets cliche.

How important do you think it is to visualize and any advice for someone to kind of enhance

their vision and the ability to look in the future?

Yeah.

I mean, it's crazy that in business, we don't use it more because if you think any athlete

would be taught in sports psychology how to visualize their success.

And yet why do we not use it more in the business community?

Because there's loads of scientific evidence now that visualization is the best way to train

our brain to help us perform better.

Regardless of whether the performance is a sales pitch or hitting a golf ball into a hole.

So I think where people get confused about visualizations, they don't realize the simplicity

of it but that you do need to do it quite regularly.

And so if I say to people, if you visualize now and your mind go to the place that makes

you really happy, like maybe it's a beach or a coffee shop you like, and instantly you

would be able to imagine everything about that.

And almost you could probably imagine the way it felt to be there or you can imagine

the smell of that place.

And that's all it is.

It's almost like what I try and imagine, I call it my future truth.

It's not truth at the moment but it's my future truth.

This is where I'm going to be.

And I imagine, if I close my eyes, I can almost see it like it's on a big, flat screen

TV.

And I'm seeing myself in that moment.

It's incredibly powerful when you then add, you try and you've got to add the feeling

though.

And I feel like to really be in that moment because what they know now from neuroscience,

when they put people on brain scans and they are to visualize, when they then say now

imagine how it would feel to have achieved that, your brain literally lights up.

Like they see the synapses in your brain connecting.

So this evidence it works but what we need to do is get into the routine of using it.

And so it's one of the reasons why when I journal in the morning, I journal in future

truths.

So I write as if I've already won that contract or I've already done this great thing with

my kids or we've already been on this amazing holiday.

And all we're really doing is training our brain to show us the opportunities to make

those things a reality.

So so powerful.

Now is that something that is just for you or do you have this that's available to others?

I thought you said that was available to others the daily journaling.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's not yet.

There's a much prettier color as well for this.

Oh look here we go.

Come here.

There are two colors.

And they are on my website, DeborahCell.com.

We ship everywhere in the world.

So what I really like about this and this came out of the fact that when I was at seeing

the rowing boat, I had a ship's log book and I wrote in it my latitude and longitude

every day.

But I also then started to write.

I realised how cathartic it was just to be writing what I was experiencing and imagining

that moment of getting to the key side in Barbados, which was my finished port and my family

or being there in this amazing moment I would get where I'd get to hold my mum and like I

used to imagine that when I held her, I'd give her a bit of a sniff because my mum always

used Nivia cream on her face.

So she has this smell about her and I would write about this in my journal in the ship's

log book.

And when I got back, I realised how powerful that practice had been.

And then I added other things to it as well.

So there's a section, for example, where I write down three things I'm grateful for

and I know lots of people know the science behind a gratitude practice but I found writing

down three little things in the last 24 hours that's happened that I'm grateful for.

It's like I install an app in my brain because then I scan my world looking for things, what

are the good things that are happening that the next day I can write down in my journal?

And I loved that because it actively makes my brain look for the positives rather than

always seeing the negatives, which I think naturally we do anyway.

And well I tell you the one thing I really like to do with the three gratitude shows,

as I always make myself write one of them about my husband because I think particularly

at the moment when we're in lockdown, we're in this very intense situation with our partners,

they're often the people who get the worst of us.

Like we can really take things out on them and I stop seeing the good in him sometimes.

So if I force myself to write one thing I'm grateful that my husband has done, it might

be something really small, like he took the pin out, he met a pizza or you know, but it

just keeps reminding my brain, yes I married to a good man and he's good and kind and I

mustn't be horrible.

Hey man, you know that's ironic, you say that.

I years back my wife and I weren't in the best place in our marriage.

And when I was reading that in a book and about focusing on the positives in your spouse

that we start to take for granted over time and repetition and routine, the little things

you don't even pay attention to.

And so what I did is starting in January that year, which was years ago, I wrote down

every single day something that I caught her doing that I appreciated about her and I

gave it to her on Thanksgiving day.

That was all the things that I was thankful for.

And man, I believe that was like one of the things that I contribute, I don't want to

say a turning point because it wasn't that bad but it was like a major jump in where we

went in our marriage that started with myself mentally appreciating those things.

I think when you're zoned in and you have the mindset that you have, you know it's like,

you look from the outside.

If I look at you, you said you were a teacher, it's like, okay, A or B, A, this woman was

a teacher or B, she sailed or she rode by herself in pitch black for three and a half months

around like sharks in the middle of nowhere, savage, which one I would say, she's definitely

the teacher.

Because you have that unassuming look to you but I know it's...

You know when we met, I'm small as well, I'm not a big woman and I think people expect

this big Russian shot putter type woman who's going to turn up and I'm really quite small.

So yeah, and I recognize that.

I think it's one of the reasons I speak all around the world is that I look quite normal

and what I hope it does is the audience can go, well, if she can do that then I can do

this.

Because she's not a big athlete, she's not a, you know, but you know, she managed to spend

three months alone and get through two hurricanes I had when I was out there.

So yeah, I hope inspires people.

What speaking of inspiring people, I think what's inspiring is, you know, I'm a firm believer

in, you know, it's not easy but you can do it all.

You could be a dad or a mother, you could be a husband and you could be successful when

you could put the work in and you could do it all but it's definitely not easy.

And so you're a mom of two, you know, you have multiple businesses.

Yeah.

You're married, you know, and that takes work and you're taking care of yourself, you know,

physically and mentally and spiritually, you know, how do you make all of that work?

You know, because I think sometimes people compartmentalize what they can do.

Like, well, I don't want to pursue my dreams because I want to be a good dad.

I want to be a good, you know, this that you can't do it all.

How are you able to do it all?

Yeah.

So I think the first thing is you can't do it all and it's probably a mess to believe

you can.

And so in various areas of my life, I've really had to do some soul searching about what

is the thing that only I can do?

Like, what is the thing that only I can do as a mother for my children?

What is the thing that only I can do in my business that I couldn't either outsource

or get an employee to do for me?

And so that was a good starting point because then I stopped trying to do everything and

I stopped and I started just doing the things that I was good at that I knew would make

a difference and shift the needle in home life and at work.

The second thing I did was I accepted that I needed some help.

I needed help cleaning the house.

I needed help doing laundry.

I don't have a housekeeper, but we get a cleaner that comes once a week.

We have a cleaner that comes in for two hours.

And I know that seems like a real luxury to a lot of people would say I'd never spend

money on a cleaner, but it's the same price as I don't know, four Starbucks or something.

I'm like, I will full go the four Starbucks if it means that somebody comes and cleans

my house so that the time I have got free, I'm spending with my children having fun,

not cleaning the house around them.

And so I just, you know, it frustrates me when I see these women who pretend that they

do and all, they're running empires, they bring up their kids, they're cleaning their

home.

You can't do it all.

And so I, you know, I think I've invested a bit of money, even when it was difficult to

afford to have a cleaner or it was difficult to afford to get other help for various bits.

Two things like, you know, when you make a decision when you're going to start employing

more people in a team, that seemed like a really big decision.

The reality is if you recruit the right people, they free you up to do the bit that you're

really good at that only you can do.

So I, it felt like a gamble at times like, oh, can I really afford to take on this person?

But each time you're taking the right person, you go, wow, look how much more I can achieve

now then.

So, you know, if you're saying, you know, you can't do it all, how are you in a sense able

to have success in all those areas?

You know, as a mom, as a wife, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister, as a bit, you know,

what is your strategy, you know, or suggestion to people that are in a similar situation

as to, you know, because you have to be able to do it all in a sense, you just can't

do it all at once, you know, other than I love what you said about the hiring, you know,

someone to help you, you know, do some of those things because it frees you up, you know,

to do other stuff, I think that's huge.

Any other tips on, you know, how are you going to rock, you know, whatever your business

or focus is and you travel, but still not completely drop the ball as a mom, you know what I mean?

So, yeah, and I think that's about setting very clear parameters and as a family, we made

some decisions around that, particularly with my work travel that I would only ever travel

Monday to Thursday and that by Friday night, I would be back in time for pizza and movie

night, you know, like that's like, if I'm not back on the, and I would never take work

on a weekend, I stopped quite a few years ago now, and sometimes I get offered, you know,

like the reason I was at that John Maxwell event is that I spoke at a John Maxwell conference

and you know, it's a huge privilege when you get asked to speak on these really big stages,

but if it's on a Saturday or Sunday, I always say no.

And that's sometimes I'm like, oh, but I really want to go, but I've made a promise to my kids

and my husband, I will always be home for weekends, particularly if you travel in the week,

like that time is family time.

The other big parameter we have is around our phones as a family, we have a big parameter around

that because where our eyes go, our mind goes and even when we're with our children, you know,

physically we can be there, but we're not present. And so we don't look at social media emails

if we're in the same rooms as our children. And the kids know that this is such a rule now,

that if we're, you know, if we ever forget and we get the screen out and they're like, no screens,

you know, so they hold us accountable to that rule. And I think that one single thing makes a

really big difference. And it's also the parameter about the phones is also we don't have phones in the

bedroom either, you know, because the bedroom is not for work. It's either for sleep or sex,

it's not for work. I like that. Amen to that sister. I love it. So, you know, you mentioned the

the Maxwell event and stuff. Is there any books that you would suggest that you like that are

your kind of your go-to's? Yeah, I mean, any of your John Maxwell's, of course, are pretty amazing.

I'm, for me, the Bible is up there because it's full of great leadership skills and lessons and

you know, great if you want to know how do you build a good team around you and learn compassion.

Like those are, those are the real things you learn in the Bible. So I think there's a lot of good

in that. Any favorite books in the, in the Bible, like my go-to's Proverbs and Psalms. Yeah, I guess

I'm more of a Proverbs and Psalms. I'm not so good at the kind of Old Testament really scary ones.

I find Proverbs and Psalms a bit more inspiring. I really liked, there's been a few modern books

recently that I've helped me a lot from a business perspective. One of them was Atomic Habits by James

Clear. I mean, that probably helped me establish more habits and get them stuck and routine and on

autopilot than anything else has. So practical, very readable. So Atomic Habits by James Clear's

a really good one. And another one I found for, I've just finished that helped me work was, it's

called Deep Work by Cal Newport. And that one really opened my eyes to how I carve out chunks of

time for the big project work. Not the kind of day to day stuff, but the kind of future stuff that

I really want to develop. And from a kind of brain point of view in learning about how we use

visualization and the power of our brains and our minds. There's quite an old book now called The

Power of the Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy, I think he's. And the Power of the Subconscious

Mind taught me a huge amount that I have applied both in my business, my home and I found my sports

life that has been helpful. Love it. Thanks for those. So it was Atomic Habits. Yeah. Did you say Deep Work?

Deep Work, yeah. Deep Work and then Power of Subconscious Mind.

Yeah, the power of the subconscious mind.

Yeah, but I don't want to take all your time.

I know how busy you are, but I did have one more thing I wanted to try to get from you.

And that would be, you know, for the things that you've set out to do, especially the

Atlantic Ocean thing, you start to, people set goals, you know, like that was a goal.

And then obstacles happen, you know, it's like all of a sudden, metaphorically, you know,

we're in the middle of the ocean, you know, in the dark by ourself, you know, like life

sometimes.

And so you set that goal and then you find yourself by yourself or tired or in a situation

that's not ideal with just salt or the water that you're drinking.

And all of those things are very comparable to life.

And so what things would you suggest or give to people that set a goal and from where

they are and where they want to be that in between stuff that you got to go through,

because you didn't give up, you know, what suggestions, you know, to not give up.

And I know you gave some of some of that stuff, but any last.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, first thing, keep running the movie in your head, like you're seeing on a big screen

TV of that final moment, what it would feel like to get there.

But then you've got to break it down into much smaller steps.

And particularly when we get hit, knocked off course, there's a great piece of research

that I read in the Harvard, from the Harvard Business School that came out about the

power of small wins.

And I think they're really important that often it seems so overwhelming.

The goal is big.

And if you just say, what is the one thing I could do today, and it's a small win, like

a tiny win that would help me take one step closer to that thing I've been visualising.

Although if you write something that's so small, I say you want to write a book and you

say, right, today I'm going to write the first line.

Like, you can write the first line.

But what happens is you get this feedback loop and your brain goes, wow, I've already

done one line.

Okay, well, maybe I could just while I'm here do line two, you know, and then all of a sudden

you've written a page.

So there's this feedback loop of, yeah, you've achieved it.

Let's keep going.

So pick something so tiny that if you didn't do it, that would just be so lame if I didn't

do that one thing.

It's a tiny thing, that small win.

And then just keep doing the small wins.

And they build up to the big wins eventually.

But I think the other thing we really need to do is to take time to celebrate the small

wins.

Like at the moment, we lock down.

There have been things that we're not, we don't have the level of income we normally

have at this time of year.

There's a lot of things that aren't going great.

And so now I've gone back to really encouraging myself about the small wins.

Like if there's something I ticked off my to-do list, I'm like, I do this little fist bump,

like, you come on, you know, it's like it was a small win.

But we've got to stop and recognize sometimes that we are making progress instead of going,

oh, but I've still got this much more to do.

Go, no, do you know what, well done, Deborah, you've done one of them.

Come on, let's keep doing the next one.

I think this, this inner voice, this chat we're having on ourself is really important.

And we've got to keep pushing ourselves up, not sabotaging ourselves.

Amen.

I think, man, Deborah, you're so, so special.

It's easy to see why you've been able to do some of the things that you've done.

It's kind of hard to not root for you and root for someone.

Thank you.

Give a like to you.

And I just want to thank you for blessing us with your time and some advice and wisdom

today.

You know, I don't know how somebody wouldn't want to be connected to somebody like you.

I don't know how that wouldn't be someone that someone would want to follow or learn bits

and pieces from.

And so, you know, I know we're connected on Instagram.

It's Deborah, underscore, sir, like Pearl with an S and a E at the end underscore MBE.

And so that's your IG.

Is there any other ways people would be able to get a whole of you?

And if you could, you know, go through one more time, your website to get the journal

and all that stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my most things are linked through my website, really.

It's Deborah, spelled the short way, dbracelseal.com, Deborahcel.com.

I know the social links are on there.

And I'm probably more active on Facebook and Instagram than I am anywhere else, but I do

have a Twitter account.

And yeah, I would love to connect with anyone who wants to.

I'm a people person like connecting.

Thank you.

Well, thanks for coming on the grindcasts all the way from the UK.

We appreciate you.

I know you're just getting started in your movie, in your journey.

And we're all here.

The circle, our family on the grindcasts of people.

We're all here to support you.

And I'm here to support you in any, any, any way that I can.

I appreciate you coming on to the grindcasts.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the grindcasts.

Get ready as the new day.

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

I'm trying to told him I'm a beast.